In this specification, an image output control apparatus will be exemplified by a print control apparatus for controlling image output to a print means for printing an image. However, the present invention can also be applied to control of image output to a display means, and an apparatus therefor is also incorporated in the present invention.
As a drawing processing technique related to the present invention, a technique disclosed in, e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-105371 is generally used. In Japanese Patent Laid-Open-No. 11-105371, on the basis of intermediate data generated from print data and the attribute (e.g., whether the printer engine is color or monochrome) of an output means for printing and outputting the data, a reconfiguration control means reconfigures a rasterizing process means to rasterize the intermediate data to drawing data (bitmap data) corresponding to the specifications of the output means.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-241917 filed by the present applicant discloses a DL (Display List) structure suitable for reading out data of each attribute in a short time by DMA when data is rasterized to bitmap data in accordance with the attribute of each drawn object contained in intermediate data, and procedures thereof.
In reconfiguration in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-105371, a plurality of hardware resources are provided. The fixed resources are selected, or connection between them is changed such that a desired rasterizing process is executed. The configuration of the rasterizing process means is fixed during drawing of at least one object. Similarly, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-241917 as well, each attribute data read by DMA is rasterized by a dedicated fixed data generation unit.
Hence, even when the time of rasterizing process of each attribute changes in drawing each object, or even in an extreme case wherein an attribute without rasterizing process is present, the process time is limited by the rasterizing process of an attribute which always takes time most. A hardware resource with an attribute without any rasterizing process idles in the meantime. Hence, the hardware resource is wasted.